The immigrant narrative is the central story of the American experience; one whose norms define the variations in American cultural and literary landscape. While no single text tells the whole story of immigration, the larger narrative is always implicit. Examples with variations are provided by any ethnic group whose people write about moving and adapting to America. These migrant stories are narrated in journalism, cinema and fiction in the tradition strategically sentimentalized middle-brow fiction. While policy effects the reality of immigration, the deeper motivations for immigration come from a carefully constructed mythology, one built on both sides of American borderlands and across the globe. First- and second-generation immigrant
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As such, despite a similarity in the reasons for immigration, each migrant is able to carve their own narratives about the American experience, possible through the creation of distinct migrant identities. Works by Jewish American, African American, and Latino American, and Asian American artists as well as a graphic narrative and movies reveal how Model Minority label is often applied to an immigrant group that exemplifies ideals stereotyped for that community. These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of economic and educational opportunities and may assimilate economically and educationally while maintaining ethnic identity in religion and ethnic customs. These distinct understandings of different migrant communities came after the Immigration Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act) that overturned the quota system. The law saw the creation of narratives of Asian-Americans as being a skilled, model minority. For instance, the final story in Jhumpa Lahiri's 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, "The Third and Final Continent," offers an example of this stereotype. Lahari’s work adds to the American experience through her understanding of both integration and loss of culture, two predominant themes found in the short story. Although the narrator is amazed and grateful for his very American achievements working at MIT, of owning a house and sending a son to Harvard, he feels pangs of loss over the culture he has left behind. These accounts of assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity along with a partial rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic identity resonates with migrants across national and ethnic divisions and adds much to the American immigrant
As such, despite a similarity in the reasons for immigration, each migrant is able to carve their own narratives about the American experience, possible through the creation of distinct migrant identities. Works by Jewish American, African American, and Latino American, and Asian American artists as well as a graphic narrative and movies reveal how Model Minority label is often applied to an immigrant group that exemplifies ideals stereotyped for that community. These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of economic and educational opportunities and may assimilate economically and educationally while maintaining ethnic identity in religion and ethnic customs. These distinct understandings of different migrant communities came after the Immigration Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act) that overturned the quota system. The law saw the creation of narratives of Asian-Americans as being a skilled, model minority. For instance, the final story in Jhumpa Lahiri's 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, "The Third and Final Continent," offers an example of this stereotype. Lahari’s work adds to the American experience through her understanding of both integration and loss of culture, two predominant themes found in the short story. Although the narrator is amazed and grateful for his very American achievements working at MIT, of owning a house and sending a son to Harvard, he feels pangs of loss over the culture he has left behind. These accounts of assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity along with a partial rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic identity resonates with migrants across national and ethnic divisions and adds much to the American immigrant